Philip Pullman, whose Dark Materials trilogy I started once a few years ago but never got around to finishing, is working on a sequel that will elaborate on his conception of atheism:

“This is a big subject and I’m writing a big, big book in order to deal precisely with that question,” he tells the magazine. “I don’t want to anticipate it too much by switching a light on the answer now. The interesting – the curious – question is, if people can be helped by something that is palpably not true, is this better than denying the thing that is not true and not being helped?”

As you can see, Pullman has developed more than a little bit of Dawkinsesque condescension when he speaks now about religion, and the question he thinks is interesting and curious is actually neither interesting nor curious—but whatever else you've got to say about Pullman you've got to give the guy credit for writing a children's series that ends with God being unmasked as a monstrous, immoral fraud. That's guts.